THE MAN WHO WENT TO SPIRIT-LAND. 305 
village, and they presented the people with scalps, as they had always 
done when coming home from war. 
On the night following their return the man who had sent out 
the war-party went to offer this scalp to his wife’s dead parents. After 
doing this he returned to his home. The dance was going on and the 
people were having great times, in honor of their warriors. After he 
had eaten he went to the place where the people were having their 
victory dances. In these times a good many of the people would 
part from one another when any one would bring scalps home from 
war. The people called this “cutting-girths-from-the-saddle” (garles- 
teyosgox), which means, throwing the saddle off from a horse, for 
the men would throw one another away from a woman. The young 
man knew that his wife was not there to see him, and so he thought that 
while he had a chance to deceive her he would do it. He met a woman 
who was courting him since he made himself famous by going on the 
war-path and he stayed nearly all night with her. That night while he 
was asleep his wife, without telling him that she knew what he had 
done, left him permanently and went back to her dead people, for her 
man had done her wrong. If the man had gone with the woman 
after he had gone four times on the war-path and had presented scalps 
four times to his wife’s dead people, he would have won what his wife’s 
dead people had offered him. The next morning, the young man found 
that he was alone in bed, and he knew that his wife had left him and 
that now he had only his wife’s child. From that time on he went 
back to his wife’s grave, but there was no sign of anybody appearing 
to him, for he had not done what he had been told to do. When the — 
people found out what he had done they came around to see him and 
to tell him that he had done wrong. He told the people that he had 
been in another world; that a great many people were there; that he 
saw many people whom he did not know; that the people up there 
carried on the same customs that they did down here; but that the 
place was better than the earth. He also told them that those who 
died in battle and went there would enter that place happier than a 
person who had died of sickness. On account of this the men, when 
going out to war, fought bravely, so as to enter into another world 
happy instead of dying with sickness. The man told a good many 
other things that a person had to do and a good many things that were 
done at the dead man’s home. He lived many years afterward, and 
he mourned all the time during his life, but could never find out about 
his wife again. Nor did he ever dream about his wife or friend. 
When he died the people supposed that he had reached the homes of 
our dead people to live forever with his wife. 
